


Synergy

by Skylark



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Kink Meme, M/M, Purple Prose, Soulmates, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-19
Updated: 2011-10-19
Packaged: 2017-10-24 19:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Every telepath has a 'soulmate.' Another mind that completes theirs and helps them control/deal with being surrounded with many minds all at once. Once these 'soulmates' meet, a sort of bond forms and if rejected, the telepath will die. Erik is Charles's 'soulmate.' He doesn't appreciate being attached to someone, even if he does rather like Charles."  (Or, Charles and Erik are soulmates, and suddenly the movie gets a lot more depressing.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synergy

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](http://1stclass-kink.livejournal.com/4418.html?thread=6285890#t6285890). I actually wrote this back in July (it came pouring out of my brain at 4:30am after reading the prompt) and forgot to post it. This is the first downer ending I have ever written _ever_.

Charles cringes and yelps and he is not in pain, although he stumbles into the wall and his fingers fly to his temple and his breathing stutters. He is not in pain but he is dissolving, at once consumed by a flash of perfection, all the warring voices silenced, a foreign mind completing what he hadn't known was unfinished.

It subsides after a few seconds, though it still thrums through his nerves, and there is a person in the water who he needs more than air.

"There's someone out there," he gasps, trying to steady his leaping heart.

When he jumps into the water, it's less a conscious choice and more a lunge towards the only thing that he suddenly, absolutely cannot live without.

If he could be, he would be terrified of what's happening to him, all of it completely out of his control. But he can't.

\--

From the moment he touches this other man, this essential stranger, Charles's shields come crashing down. But it doesn't hurt, because they've been replaced by something else—something so all-encompassing that nothing else can penetrate, less than a blanket, more than a wall. It's sanctuary, acceptance, defense, a place of soft and quiet that he's never felt before.

Charles shouts in the sanctuary— _Let go._ Only one person is there to hear, shining like a beacon, but his focus is elsewhere. Charles must catch his attention, and quickly; he knows he's running out of time, although he doesn't know what that means.

He finds a name. Erik. _Erik._

The man's concentration is broken, and his head lifts, fury giving way to a sense of confused recognition.

 _You're not alone,_ Charles gasps, and then everything is bleeding together, Erik reaching for him mentally as Charles tightens his hold on Erik's shoulders in the real world, Erik's grip on the submarine loosening, the two of them floating up to the waiting air.

Later, he doesn't know if he was talking to Erik, or himself.

\--

It's a few days before Charles can sort out what's happened. When he and Erik touch, the constant hum of others' minds falls away, leaving only the two of them, and peace.

When they're apart, he can feel others again, but more muted than his shields had been able to make them before. And everything is easier. If he wants to touch someone else's mind, it takes only a fraction of the concentration that it once took. And shielding, of course, is as easy as breathing; he reaches for Erik with his mind and the veil slips around him, impenetrable.

The power he's suddenly gained is dizzying, and the implications behind it are confusing. Charles learns to be even more careful than he was before.

Charles knows that this...bond...is affecting Erik, too. Erik relaxes around him in a way that he does around no one else. Erik trusts Charles, and Erik doesn't trust anyone.

Erik asks "What do you know about me?", frightened, demanding answers. Charles says "Everything," and doesn't have any to give.

All they have is this: the bone-deep understanding that if they are apart, the world will end.

"I could stop you," Charles says, "but I won't."

\--

Months pass, and things calm.

They learn how to keep themselves separate, for the sake of both of their sanities. They learn, at least, how to keep some thoughts private, although the sense of the other person never quite leaves.

But certain things are indelibly changed. When someone wants to find Charles, they ask Erik. When Erik mentions something over chess that no one should know, not even Raven, Charles only sighs. When Erik's mind roils with nightmares, Charles reaches just a little and Erik slips back into an easy sleep. When Charles says _I trust you,_ Erik doesn't doubt him.

When one of them thinks of the other, they both smile.

\--

 _This must be what love feels like,_ Charles thinks.

 _Yes,_ Erik agrees, flat.

\--

It's as if Charles's mind was a cloth, worn thin, and Erik is a newer weaving to strengthen the weak places with strong threads and vivid colors.

Charles's reach grows every day, tendrils of consciousness chasing the sunrise line as it moves across the earth. Metal begins to bend towards Erik everywhere he goes, imperceptibly, like flowers orienting towards the sun.

\--

 _There was never a choice,_ Erik says. _I never had a choice._

Charles summons all of his strength to shield himself from Erik. Then he says, as calmly as he can, "You have always had a choice."

"You'll _die_ ," Erik shouts, "I can't—" his voice cracks.

Charles stares resolutely at Erik's chest. "I'm not so sure," he says, tone light. Inside, he is shaking, so afraid. "Although I wouldn't be—the same, no."

Erik makes a broken noise in the back of his throat and reaches for him, blindly pressing their foreheads together. A feeling that neither of them can stop rises up to engulf both of them. Distantly, Charles feels Erik clutching his hands, making his bones creak from the pressure. _You don't have a choice, either, no more than I do,_ Erik says, eyes boring into his. _Why aren't you angry?_

Charles whispers, _Because you are everything I have longed for, and nothing I deserve._

\--

Charles spends more time building walls, and teaches Erik how to do the same.

It hurts at first; Charles fights constant headaches and Erik's nails leave half-permanent semicircles on his palms. Eventually, they adjust. They learn to override the bursts of fear—they're both still here, steady, not going anywhere—and the newfound independence brings them both a sense of relief.

Still, like everything else in their relationship, it has side effects. Erik stares at his hands while Charles considers him across the chessboard, and there's an argument hanging in the air. They've been growing more frequent as their shields have strengthened.

\--

"Between rage and serenity," Charles whispers, and allows the memory to unfurl.

He could have chosen a dozen things; he could have chosen nothing and simply given Erik a brush of the wholeness they feel when they're joined, mind and body; but he brings up a moment that is Erik's alone, and steps back as much as he can. He wants Erik to keep this moment for himself, to remember that despite their connection, they're still two people with different minds, different goals. That they're stronger together, but Erik still has a wellspring of strength that is entirely his own. There is more between them that is similar than what is different, but they're still each _unique._

Erik looks up at him, and Charles smiles.

Erik's fingers curl as if closing around a child's toy. The satellite turns, and Charles feels weirdly isolated from it. His shields are still up, as strong as he can make them, and Erik's triumph, disbelief, all filter in as if from far away. He looks on as Erik's face breaks into a grin. He feels proud, but also as if something is being lost.

He's glad, secretly, when Moira calls them away. But he keeps that thought to himself.

\--

"I'm sorry, Charles," Erik says. Then a void, as if someone has sliced away half of him with a steel knife.

Charles screams _No_ into a silence that crowds him on all sides, backing him into a corner as he fights to keep a hold on Shaw. _No,_ he cries, _**please.**_

Erik's eyes bore into Shaw's, bore into him. The coin floats inexorably closer.

Charles stares into Erik's pitiless gaze and knows, all at once: a part of Erik has always hated him.

\--

In Shaw's dying moments, Charles loses track of whose consciousness belongs to whom. There's Shaw, writhing and fighting, clutching at anything it can find; there's Charles, hazy with pain and betrayal, clinging to Shaw with a grim determination; there's Erik, tangled into the mesh of Charles's very being, a shattered portrait painted through the dying sparks of Shaw's optic nerves.

Erik is Charles's anchor, and Charles is Shaw's anchor, and Shaw is clutching Charles who is reaching for Erik, because he's the only thing that Charles is still certain of, and Erik is killing Shaw.

Shaw dies, clutching the bond between Charles and Erik in a death grip. Charles feels it straining to hold—then snapping, sailing after Shaw in a long, dizzying drop.

Charles hits the floor.

\--

Charles is empty, empty.

Cold floods him from the inside out. It's like being back where it all started, dark icy pressure on all sides, salt burning his raw throat, no air, sounds warped like they're out of a nightmare.

Ten minutes later, he wakes up screaming. The pain is receding to a dull hammering, but he can't feel anyone or anything, everything is gone. Raven is beside him as he shudders, curls into a ball and rakes hands against his back and upper arms, desperate for a distraction, _any_ distraction—but it's not enough, the silence continues, endless. His scream dies into shuddering gasps.

"Charles," Moira says, stumbling through the plane's rubble, "what happened, are you okay, what did you—" then she sees him, and stops.

"I don't know," Raven says, staring into blue eyes with the pupils blown wide. "He was yelling for Erik, then he dropp—"

Moira spits a curse and whirls, sprinting out onto the sand, where everything has stopped. Inside the submarine, Erik is struggling to his feet, staggering, crashing into mirrored walls and loosing cascades of glass.

\--

"I've been at the mercy of men following orders," Erik says. Once upon a time, Erik would have seen the meaning behind the words, and known what Charles was trying to say.

Charles is so tired, so hurt, shaking and trying to hold back tears. There are too many things to save and he has never felt so powerless in his life. He stares at Erik, numb horror twisting in his gut, trying to make him understand, just to _understand—_

"Never again," Erik says.

\--

Charles stares at his nerveless legs. His powers have returned after several months, but he can't feel Erik anymore, and he doesn't know if it's from the helmet or the broken bond.

Breaking the bond required a life—Shaw's life—and Charles doesn't know if Erik knew that, if he was killing two birds with one coin. He'll never know.

The pain comes and goes when it wants. Sometimes, it hurts so badly that he can barely breathe. But he'll survive.

It's just another lost limb.

**Author's Note:**

> // written 27 Jul 2011 to 15 Oct 2011


End file.
